24 July 2024
On the 24th of July, BusinessEurope presented a position paper setting out its priorities for transport policy in the 2024-2029 legislative cycle. Business Europe’s main recommendations include:
- Guarantee a level playing field with third-country competitors, remove all barriers to cross-border EU transport and logistics services and promote multimodality and interoperability between the different transport modes, while ensuring fair competition.
- Ensure adequate funding for European infrastructure projects for all modes and a timely completion of the trans-European transport network, and strengthen infrastructure serving multimodal, innovative, and sustainable transport solutions.
- Create the right enabling conditions for the decarbonisation of all modes of transport and support technology neutrality in the green transition of the sector
- Ensure adequate cybersecurity of the transport and logistics sector, fully unlock the potential of mobility data from all transport modes and multimodal transport and support the development and deployment of ICT systems and digital infrastructure.
The position includes a number of recommendations specific to each transport mode, as well as recommendations that aim at the improvement of the functioning of the EU transport sector at large.
BusinessEurope calls on policy makers to continue to focus on creating a global level playing field in the aviation and maritime sector, while stressing that the appropriateness of the proposal to tax maritime and aviation fuels in the Energy Taxation Directive should be reconsidered. Both for maritime and aviation, the paper stresses that policy makers should aim at preventing a reconfiguration of traffic flows at the expense of EU hubs as this will lead to a reduction of competitiveness as well as connectivity.
Still focusing on horizontal priorities, a plea is made for the further opening of transport markets, including through the liberalisation of freight transport across the EU. In addition, the paper underlines the importance of adequate investments in infrastructure such as through the renewal and increase of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and a timely completion of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T).
In addition, the strengthening of infrastructure, efficiency, availability and accessibility of multimodal freight terminals, while upgrading and optimising existing facilities, is highlighted, as multimodal freight terminals are essential in allowing for multimodal transport solutions and serve as nodes connecting maritime, rail, road and inland waterway transport. Finally, across all modes, adequate financing and deployment of the necessary alternative fuel infrastructure is needed in order to meet the objectives of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) while supporting wider EU decarbonisation targets.
The paper’s section on road transport strongly focusses on the facilitation of the cross-border provision of road transport services, while making a number of recommendations aimed at skills gaps and shortages.
Concerning rail, BusinessEurope calls attention to the need for adequate funding and efficient governance to support a harmonised deployment of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). Furthermore, a number of recommendations aim at achieving efficient and flexible rail infrastructure capacity management.
In the dedicated section on maritime, inland waterways and ports, attention is called to the specific position of transhipment ports, stressing that the implementation of EU ETS should be supervised and monitored, not only to safeguard the competitive position of these ports, but also because the European manufacturing industry depends on imports and exports enabled by the maritime sector.
Business Europe recognises the role of ports as strategic assets for Europe that promote sustainable economic growth, increase the resilience of the economy and contribute to the energy transition and decarbonisation of transport. A European Port Strategy is therefore needed with a particular focus on strengthening international competitiveness, while promoting both critical port infrastructure and competitive private port companies. Both are highly important for European competitiveness but have different needs. A Future Port Strategy should therefore clearly distinguish between both.
Business Europe’s position paper can be accessed here.